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Goin' someplace special

by McKissack, Pat, 1944-2017,

Format: Print Book 2009
Availability: Unavailable 0 copies

Summary
Through moving prose and beautiful watercolors, a Coretta Scott King Award and Caldecott Medal-winning author-illustrator duo collaborate to tell the poignant tale of a spirited young girl who comes face to face with segregation in her southern town.

There's a place in this 1950s southern town where all are welcome, no matter what their skin color...and 'Tricia Ann knows exactly how to get there. To her, it's someplace special and she's bursting to go by herself. But when she catches the bus heading downtown, unlike the white passengers, she must sit in the back behind the Jim Crow sign and wonder why life's so unfair.

Still, for each hurtful sign seen and painful comment heard, there's a friend around the corner reminding 'Tricia Ann that she's not alone. And her grandmother's words--"You are somebody, a human being--no better, no worse than anybody else in this world"--echo in her head, lifting her spirits and pushing her forward.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Ages 5-8. Tricia Ann excitedly gets her grandmother's permission to go out by herself to "Someplace Special" --a place far enough away to take the bus and to have to walk a bit. But this isn't just any trip. Tricia's trip takes place in the segregated South of the 1950s. That means Tricia faces sitting at the back of the bus, not being allowed to sit on a whites-only park bench, and being escorted out of a hotel lobby. She almost gives up, but a local woman who some say is "addled," but whom Tricia Ann knows to be gentle and wise, shows her how to listen to the voice inside herself that allows her to go on. She arrives at her special destination--the public library, whose sign reads "All Are Welcome." Pinkney's watercolor paintings are lush and sprawling as they evoke southern city streets and sidewalks as well as Tricia Ann's inner glow. In an author's note, McKissack lays out the autobiographical roots of the story and what she faced as a child growing up in Nashville. This book carries a strong message of pride and self-confidence as well as a pointed history lesson. It is also a beautiful tribute to the libraries that were ahead of their time.--Denise Wilms"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "McKissack draws from her childhood in Nashville for this instructive picture book. "I don't know if I'm ready to turn you loose in the world," Mama Frances tells her granddaughter when she asks if she can go by herself to "Someplace Special" (the destination remains unidentified until the end of the story). 'Tricia Ann does obtain permission, and begins a bittersweet journey downtown, her pride battered by the indignities of Jim Crow laws. She's ejected from a hotel lobby and snubbed as she walks by a movie theater ("Colored people can't come in the front door," she hears a girl explaining to her brother. "They got to go 'round back and sit up in the Buzzard's Roost"). She almost gives up, but, buoyed by the encouragement of adult acquaintances ("Carry yo'self proud," one of her grandmother's friends tells her from the Colored section on the bus), she finally arrives at Someplace Special a place Mama Frances calls "a doorway to freedom" the public library. An afterword explains McKissack's connection to the tale, and by putting such a personal face on segregation she makes its injustices painfully real for her audience. Pinkney's (previously paired with McKissack for Mirandy and Brother Wind) luminescent watercolors evoke the '50s, from fashions to finned cars, and he captures every ounce of 'Tricia Ann's eagerness, humiliation and quiet triumph at the end. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects African Americans -- Juvenile fiction.
Segregation -- Juvenile fiction.
African Americans -- Fiction.
Segregation -- Fiction.
Nashville (Tenn.) -- Juvenile fiction.
Nashville (Tenn.) -- Fiction.
Publisher New York :Aladdin Paperbacks,2009
Edition 1st Aladdin Paperbacks ed.
Other Titles Going someplace special
Contributors Pinkney, Jerry, illustrator.
Audience Ages 4-8.
Language English
Notes Originally published: New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2001.
Awards Coretta Scott King Award, illustrator, 2002
Description 34 unnumbered pages : color illustrations ; 29 cm
ISBN 9781416927358
1416927352
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